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The two common forms of plated silver are Sheffield plate and silverplate/electroplate.
Sheffield Plate is a cheaper substitute for sterling, produced by fusing sheets of silver to the top and
bottom of a sheet of copper or base metal. This 'silver sandwich' was then worked into finished pieces. At
first it was only put on one side and later was on top and bottom.
Modern electroplating was invented by Italian chemist Luigi V. Brugnatelli in 1805. Brugnatelli used his
colleague Alessandro Volta's invention of five years earlier, the voltaic pile, to facilitate the first
electrodeposition. Unfortunately, Brugnatelli's inventions were repressed by the French Academy of Sciences
and did not become used in general industry for the following thirty years.
Silver plate or electroplate is formed when a thin layer of pure or sterling silver is deposited
electrolytically on the surface of a base metal.
By 1839, scientists in Britain and Russia had independently devised metal deposition processes similar to
Brugnatelli's for the copper electroplating of printing press plates.
Soon after, John Wright of Birmingham, England, discovered that potassium cyanide was a suitable
electrolyte for gold and silver electroplating.
Wright's associates, George Elkington and Henry Elkington were awarded the first patents for electroplating
in 1840. These two then founded the electroplating industry in Birmingham England from where it spread
around the world.
Common base metals include copper, brass, nickel
silver - an alloy of copper, zinc and nickel - and Britannia metal - a tin alloy with 5-10% antimony.
Electroplated materials are often stamped EPNS for electroplated nickel on silver, or EPBM for electroplated Britannia metal.